Last Wednesday, I made my way down to Kemang for dinner, cocktails and a catch up with a girlfriend. She had suggested Casa, a restaurant and bar located above Aksara bookshop, where you can browse through overpriced trinkets and magazines while you wait for your friends to arrive.
I’d been to Casa before, one night when bar hopping around the Kemang area. During happy hour they serve two-for-one RP150,000 cocktails, and lurking in the shadows of dim light and a haze of smoke, it’s a hip little place to hang out.
Come early on a weeknight though, and it’s much more family friendly, serving up a range of bar snacks, salads, and main meals. We both settled on pasta, me the spaghetti puttanesca with green olives and anchovies (RP75,000), and Merryn the linguini with a boneless chicken leg, sugar snaps and green peas (RP80,000).
Our meals came quickly and mine was delicious, the perfect mixture of tomato sweetness and fishy saltiness. Not quite up to Trattoria standards, but I put that down to their hand-made pasta. Other tempting items on the menu included pork chorizo pappardelle with roasted chilli, onion, peppers and green peas (RP850,000) and frangipani caramel pie with lychee (RP60,000), but best to save some options for next time.
Despite it being a school night, we couldn’t resist a cocktail or two, especially when their drink menus are so kitsch. I washed my pasta down with a vodka, lychee and mint Fresca (RP80,000), and Merryn indulged in a Mango Muddle (RP80,000). After that, it was onto the Extremely Good Sheesha Cafe next door (better than the name suggests, if that’s even possible) before being tucked into bed before midnight.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply